“Right; it would be noticed by the bank examiners if huge amounts of cash were being deposited, and they’d notify Treasury or the Bureau.”
“Right. So they’ve got to get the money out of the country.”
“Right.”
“You know about this network of informal banks that people from the Middle East use to send money to relatives? They don’t actually wire-transfer it; somebody deposits it with a bank in the sending country, then a phone call is made and the relatives go and collect it from a so-called bank in the receiving country. There’s no paper trail, as with a wire transfer.”
“Yes, it’s thought that some terrorism operations may have been funded that way. It’s very difficult to stop.”
“Right. Now, the Pellegrinos are sitting on large sums of cash in Saint Marks that they can’t send back to the U.S., right?”
“Right.”
“And the drug dealers in the States are sitting on large sums that they can’t get out of the country, right?”
“Sort of. There are other ways to get money in and out of the country; it’s called money laundering.”
“Yes, but you leave a paper trail that someday might be discovered.”
“Maybe.”
“So, suppose the drug dealers in this country ship their money to a predetermined spot in the United States, where it’s counted and stored in a safe place. Then somebody makes a call to Saint Marks, and an identical amount of money, less a healthy handling fee, of course, is then transferred to someplace else in the world, an account of the drug dealers’ choice.”
“I believe I get the picture.”
“It’s what you’ve been working on, isn’t it?”
“I will neither confirm nor deny that.”
“I think what I saw today was boxes of cash being unloaded and very probably taken to a facility that was built for the purpose back when Blood Orchid was Palmetto Gardens. It’s a building with underground vaults, just like a bank.”
“Possibly.”
“You know that’s what’s happening, don’t you, Grant? It’s what you’ve been working on all this time.”
Grant said nothing.
“Then why haven’t you rolled up the operation? Not enough evidence yet?”
Grant still did not speak.
“All right, then, just answer me one question, just one. Will you do that?”
“If I can,” Grant replied.
“Who is Ed Shine?”
55
Grant looked at her. “Ed Shine is Ed Shine,” he said. “He has no criminal record; he has a history in New York as a property developer; he’s even inWho’s Who, for God’s sake. The Bureau checked him out thoroughly; he is who he says he is. What is it that worries you about Shine?”
“Everything I’ve just told you,” Holly replied. “If my theory is correct, he has to be a part of it. And it bothers me that our airplane was shot at by someone on the Blood Orchid property.”
“How do you know that? The fire might have come from the river, or the beach, or a road somewhere around Blood Orchid.”
“The angles were right,” Holly said.
“Angles of fire can be deceiving,” Grant said, “especially when you’re the one being shot at. Anyway, you’ve been staying at Blood Orchid for two days, haven’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Well, if Shine wanted you dead, why didn’t he just drop by and pump a few bullets into you?”
“Good point,” Holly admitted. “He certainly had ample opportunity. But that guy from the airplane that unloaded the boxes was staring at me, and he made a call. Shortly after that, we were fired on.”
“I stare at you all the time,” Grant said. “Any red-blooded male would. And people make cellphone calls all the time, too. You’re making a connection where there isn’t one.”
Holly sighed. “Maybe you’re right.”
“From what you’ve told me about Ed Shine, he’s been nothing but nice to you. There are things that don’t add up in this case, but Shine isn’t one of them.”
“All right, but let’s go back to my theory about the exchange of money between criminal elements.”
“Run your theory by me again.”
“The Pellegrinos collect drug profits from various criminals in the States, then reimburse them with profits from their off-shore gambling operation.”
“Oh, that theory.”
“My question is, what do the Pellegrinos do with the money they collect inside the United States? It doesn’t make any sense to just warehouse it in a vault at Blood Orchid; they have to do something with it.”
“Like what?”
“Like buy up large chunks of real estate in Florida and, maybe, in other places. I mean, where did Ed Shine get the sixty million bucks to buy the place from the GSA?”
“He’s a rich guy.”
“Did the Bureau run financial checks as well as background checks on Ed?”
“I don’t know.”
“Grant, when you checked out Ed, how did you go about it?”
“I called the Bureau, and they did the legwork.”
“Who did you call?”
“Harry Crisp.”
“Why?”
“He’s my boss; I’m assigned to the Miami field office, and he’s the agent in charge. Harry also runs me, personally.”
“Do you have any other way of running a check on somebody, without going through Harry?”
“Sure, I could call somebody I know in D.C. and get a check done, but why would I want to do that?”
“Did you ever ask Harry to run a check on the Pellegrinos?”
“Yes, I did.”
“And what answer did you get?”
“The first time, no criminal record.”
“And the second time you found out who they really were?”
“Yes.”
“And what period of time passed between your first request and when you found out who they really were?”
Grant thought about it. “Two, three weeks, I guess.”
“Did it ever occur to you that Harry might have known who they were all along?”
“Why are you asking me this?”
“Because quite a lot of time passed between whenI asked Harry to check out the Pellegrinos and when I learned who they were. And I didn’t learn it from Harry, I learned it from you. Harry hasnever told me that the Pellegrinos were the Falcones.”
“Yeah, but you’re not Bureau; I am.”
“But what did Harry have to gain by keeping me in the dark about the Pellegrinos?”
“Nothing, probably. I’ve told you that the Bureau likes to keep information to itself.”
“In that case, why did Harry keepyou in the dark about the Pellegrinos? After all, you’re Bureau; why should he hide anything from you?”
“Are you suggesting that Harry is somehow involved with the Pellegrinos?”
“Well, I was going to suggest that Harry Crisp is a self-aggrandizing son of a bitch who likes to take credit for other people’s work, even his own agents’, but I’m willing to entertain the thought that he might be dirty.”
Grant shook his head. “Harry hasn’t got it in him,” he said.
“That’s my take on Harry, too, but we could both be wrong. Look, Grant, I know that an agent doesn’t get ahead in the Bureau by questioning his boss’s honesty, but I think that, for our current purposes, you at least have to consider the possibility.”
“All right, so Harry sometimes withholds information he shouldn’t. Tell me something else that might suggest that he’s dirty.”
“Well, how about the murder of the guy at the General Services Administration?”
“What about it?”
“Why was he murdered?”
“I don’t know.”
“If you remember, it was that guy who first tipped Harry to the connection between Blood Orchid and the murders of the two Miami developers and the attempt on Ed Shine.”
“It was?”
“Harry didn’t tell you that?”
“Not that I recall.”
“He probably told you that he turned up that information, but he actually got a call from the guy at the GSA, Howard Singleton, who alerted him to the connection.”